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The Horatio/Affinity
}} Affinity Traits Splicing Splicing does not copy in the collection bonuses, so you still have a valid reason for potentially wanting some minor pops to augment your major pop, since you only need 1 of a minor pop on any system to multiply output by, say, 15% or whatever the bonus is. If you are playing as a custom faction, any "Horatio" populations you encounter will not be considered your primary population, and thus, they will also be available for splicing. Splicing is allowed even for completely robotic/non-corporeal factions which arguably don't even have genes to splice (e.g., Epistis, Riftborn, Remnant, and Pulsos). This is most likely done purely for the sake of fun and consistent mechanics, but you could probably hand-wave an explanation with some idea like cybernetic implants. The best factions to splice are also the hardest to get - Riftborn, Vodyani, and Cravers. You won't be able to grow additional Riftborn from captured populations, you can only get Vodyani population by converting or successfully invading their system without destroying their Ark Ships, and Cravers will probably kill you first. Major Faction Splicing Bonuses Minor Faction Splicing Bonuses Population Traits Note: '''The parenthetical about being "Honor Bound" means that this is the bonus you get if you're playing the Hissho (or a custom faction with their trait) and you acquire Horatio populations, which is a common occurrence because of the quest that happens in most games with the "lost horatio" explorer ship. Political Traits '''Note: Unlike most other populations, Horatio only possess two political traits. Splicing The "Gene Hunter" faction affinity allows you to splice the genes of any non-Horatio population into your primary population. It immediately adds a bonus based on the population you've chosen to splice to all instances of your major (i.e., Horatio, or some custom faction with this affinity) population. This bonus is a 'lesser' copy of whatever that population usually provides in its vanilla form; often reduced by 1/3 or 1/2; however, it is provided in addition to the natural population trait of Horatios. You're allowed to combine multiple bonuses from multiple factions - in fact, this is the main strength of this faction affinity; combining as many of these as possible to make your primary citizens much more productive than those of other factions. Splicing requires the sacrifice of a certain number of population instances of the faction being spliced; this starts at 2, with the next faction requiring 4, then 6, etc. These populations are immediately deleted, and can drive the number of that faction in your empire to 0, effectively making it extinct. If you want to maintain these minor factions in your empire, be careful not to over-eagerly use splicing the moment you have enough to do it; instead, get at least one surplus population before splicing. Ships Horatio's ships have a hidden bonus (not listed in the formal faction traits) that gives them 10% more HP than other faction's ships of the same class. This helps to offset the 25% increased production cost that's listed as one of the formal faction traits. Most of the Horatio ships are characterized by extensive use of multi-purpose module slots, and slightly less module slots overall than other factions' comparable ships. Although you can make 'jack-of-all-trades' ships, there's a unique opportunity to study the particular ways in which your opponent's ships are inflexible, and to equip your ships in a way that exploits that. Faction Quest Rewards Colonizer Strategic Implications One of these slots must be filled with a colonization module, so your colonizers will be a bit slower than some factions (like Riftborn) that can fit 3. The fact that these can hybridize as defense slots is arguably not very useful unless your colonizer is in a fleet, since if it's caught on its own without an ability to attack against 3-4 ships, it'll still most likely die before the full battle finishes, even with hefty armor/shields, and such a ship will be very slow. Explorer Strategic Implications As a "pure exploration" ship this has above-par potential, since you can equip a full 4 utility models (whether movement or probes). With 4 slots, you've got an excellent mix for speed and probe slots; you also can sacrifice one slot for defense and still be quite speedy. By having a full 4 slots, one of the niche roles this is unusually good at is equipping a ship with 4 probes, making a nearly immobile ship that reveals an enormous radius around the system it's built in (often revealing most of a constellation, and revealing hidden nodes nearby). Since this ship has the potential to have up to 3 defense slots, or 2 defense and 1 attack, it's also potentially a very solid early-game fighting ship, helpful for rushing opponents or fighting off pirates. This helps offset one of the Horatio faction's weaknesses, which is the normally rather high cost penalty applied to all of their ships (you also can just do this immediately at the start of the game, without having to get the actual tech for combat ships). Attacker Strategic Implications Potentially has 3 Attack slots, and potentially has 6 Defense slots, though due to the Horatio multi-purpose slot trend, any investment in one direction means you're losing potential slots of a different type. A bit low on Utility (engine) modules, although you get an extra one with the upgrade. This is a quite flexible ship, so you've really got a lot of options to deal with different early-game challenges before medium ships come online; if you size up your opponents and try to figure out what weakness they're trying to exploit (or vice-versa, look for one of theirs), you can actually reconfigure your ships to be mostly immune to whatever they're throwing at you, whereas they can't, because most opposing ships aren't nearly as configurable. During the early game when all anyone has are Attacker/Protector ships, this matters a lot more than it does later (with more classes of ships, they can patch over any gaps they have in capability more effectively). Protector Strategic Implications Unlike most other Horatio ships with lots of configuration options, this ship can only equip one Attack module, ever. However, it's got lots of possibility to equip Defense and Utility modules, so you can make a very tanky ship (even potentially forgoing weapons entirely). There are a grand total of 5 potential Defense modules, and 6 potential Utility modules, 4 of which overlap. Coordinator Strategic Implications This can mount a fairly high number of Squadrons; 3 in total, one of which is locked behind the upgrade. This has a "functionally" low count of potential Defense modules; technically you've got 5 in total, but because they're multi-purpose slots, if you actually equip more than 3 you're losing most of your offensive potential. The same caveat applies to Utility slots, and hence, potential engines - you've got a grand total of 8, but at least 5 of them have contention with other loadouts like offense and defense. You could make an obscenely fast ship with just one heavy attack and one defense module, but you probably don't want to go that direction. Hunter Strategic Implications Potentially has 4 attack slots (and one Heavy Attack). Potentially has 7 Defense slots. Potentially has 5 Utility slots. The design trend on Horatio ships applies again; more than half of these are multi-purpose slots, and using them for one purpose means you're losing a slot in another category. Carrier Strategic Implications Potentially 5 squadron modules. Potentially 8 Utility modules. Potentially 8 Defense modules; all of this sounds great, except in continuation of the Horatio Ship Design Theme, these are mixed module types, so any specialization in one direction directly cuts into another capability. If you specialize in one direction, you can be rather above par compared to other carriers, but if you have a mixed ship loadout you'll probably end up somewhat below the capabilities of other factions' ships, since your overall number of slots is a bit lower.